Regenerative food and community hub in Candelara, Italy
Italy
Education, Restoration, CommunityKO
Kootuia
New Zealand
Business, Indigenous Group, Community GroupKootuia is a systems innovation and regeneration practice, supporting organisations to design and deliver programmes that enable long-term change across food systems, urban regeneration, and community development.
Project story
Introduction
In just its first year of operation, SemiVaganti has laid the foundation for a vibrant, community-centred initiative that brings together food, wellbeing, ecology, and social connection.
What began as a vision to create a place where people could reconnect with themselves, one another, and the land has already generated meaningful outcomes. Throughout 2025, significant work has been undertaken to transform the site from a neglected landscape into a space of possibility and regeneration.
Key achievements include:
Establishing a vegan kitchen that provides meals, hosts community dinners, and creates opportunities for people to gather around food.
Removing large volumes of accumulated waste and restoring neglected areas of the property.
Beginning the rehabilitation of the site's olive orchard and surrounding landscape.
Introducing yoga and wellbeing programmes that encourage deeper connections between people and place.
Planting the first food crops to support household needs and lay the groundwork for future food production systems.
These initiatives represent more than individual projects. Together, they form the beginnings of an integrated regenerative ecosystem where food, education, ecology, and community reinforce one another.
To date, this progress has been an extraordinary achievement driven by the vision, leadership, and commitment of the SemiVaganti family. Community support has steadily grown through events, shared meals, and local participation, demonstrating a strong appetite for a place that brings people together around food, culture, and connection.
Almost every aspect of the project has been self-funded and self-delivered by the family from marketing and event delivery to site maintenance, restoration works, and specialist expertise, while simultaneously raising a young family. The opportunity now is to build the operational capacity, resources, and supporting systems needed to transform this emerging initiative into a lasting community asset.
The long-term vision is to create a living demonstration of regenerative practice—one that reconnects people to the origins of their food, strengthens community resilience, restores ecological health, and inspires new ways of living in relationship with the land.
To realise this vision, SemiVaganti and Kootuia have formed a strategic partnership that combines practical implementation with regenerative design methodologies, systems thinking, and appropriate technologies. Together, they seek to cultivate regenerative capital across ecological, social, cultural, and economic dimensions while creating a model that can inspire similar initiatives elsewhere.
Meet the Project Stewards
SemiVaganti
SemiVaganti is our family: Alessia, Luca, Arturo, and Olivia alongside Bobby Marlon and Penny Lane, the beloved caretakers of the property.
Originally from Pesaro, we returned to our homeland after several years living in the Canary Islands, where we co-founded and operated a 100% vegan restaurant in Tenerife. It was ultimately the pull of nature, community, and the countryside that brought us home.
SemiVaganti represents the beginning of a new chapter: creating a place where food, hospitality, wellbeing, and connection to the land can come together to support both people and the environment.
Kootuia
Kootuia is a regenerative development and futures practice working between the Marche region of Italy and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand.
The name Kootuia means "to strengthen connections through the weaving of relationships", reflecting our commitment to connecting people, place, culture, and ecology in ways that create lasting and meaningful change.
Founded by Alexanda (Marche-based) and Christina (Auckland-based), Kootuia brings more than a decade of experience in regeneration, systems change, and social innovation. Their work includes leadership in regional food systems, community engagement for long-term river regeneration programmes in Auckland, and the delivery of regenerative practice training and guest lectures across Europe.
Kootuia supports organisations, communities, and place-based initiatives to design and implement programmes that enable long-term transformation across food systems, urban regeneration, ecological restoration, and community development.
The Opportunity
The potential of SemiVaganti lies in its ability to bring people back into relationship with the land while cultivating a strong, interconnected community. The site has the capacity to become a living demonstration of regenerative practice, education, wellness, food production, and community collaboration.
Current Focus Areas
1. Urban Market Garden
The first priority is establishing an on-site market garden capable of producing food for the family and team, with the long-term goal of creating a local food system that is accessible to the wider community.
The garden will serve multiple purposes:
Producing fresh, edible food.
Demonstrating regenerative growing practices.
Creating educational experiences that connect food production to food preparation.
Providing opportunities for cooking classes that showcase the journey from garden bed to kitchen to community table.
Expanding ecological education through the cultivation of native species and a deeper understanding of natural systems.
2. Connecting the Site to the Pond
A second focus is creating a nature trail that links the main site to the local pond. This trail will support guided walks, nature excursions, and educational experiences that encourage greater awareness of the surrounding ecosystem and biodiversity.
3. Community Activity Hub
SemiVeganti has the potential to become a local hub for community activity, supporting:
Local market stallholders and producers.
Music and cultural events.
Wellness activities such as yoga and movement practices.
Educational workshops and gatherings.
Together, these activities can form a vibrant micro-ecosystem that supports social, cultural, environmental, and economic wellbeing.
4. Regenerative Systems and Strategy
Many of these initiatives are already functioning in their early stages. However, there is currently no coordinated framework or staff management that connects these activities into a unified regenerative strategy.
To achieve long-term impact, SemiVeganti requires a staged development process, clear operational systems, and an overarching strategy that enables the project to become increasingly self-sustaining while continuously nurturing both community and landscape.
Proposed First-Year Partnership Program
Over the next twelve months, the proposed first stage of development will focus on:
Resourcing and establishing the market garden
Developing productive growing spaces.
Building soil health and regenerative growing systems.
Increasing local food production capacity.
Creating a water harvesting and education system
Implementing practical water capture and management infrastructure.
Using the system as a demonstration and educational tool for visitors and participants.
Delivering educational cooking programs
Running cooking classes alongside food production activities.
Teaching participants how food moves from soil to plate.
Building awareness of healthy, local, seasonal food systems.
Developing the pond trail and ecological learning experiences
Creating access to the pond through a nature-based walking track.
Facilitating conversations and education around ecology, biodiversity, and landscape regeneration.
Designing the long-term regenerative strategy
Developing the operational systems, governance structures, and implementation of roadmap required to bring the broader vision to life.
Establishing a clear staged process for future growth and investment.
Developing an impact measurement process
Create a sustainable operational model to enable community-enabled regeneration.
Hosting regenerative training and co-design programs
Running on-site regenerative training sessions where participants can learn practical tools and methodologies.
Creating opportunities for people to contribute directly to the land while developing skills and knowledge.
Engaging the community in co-designing the future of the site.
Vision
We are approaching this work with humility, knowing we don’t have it all worked out, and staying open to learning as we go. What matters most to us is the commitment to keep showing up, listening to the land and the community, and evolving the project step by step.
This early stage offers a rare and valuable opportunity to build strong foundations with care and intention shaping the systems, relationships, and resources that will support SemiVaganti to grow in a grounded and resilient way over time.
SemiVaganti’s Regenerative Ecosystem in Candelara has the potential to become a living regenerative hub where food, ecology, education, wellness, and community are woven together. Through a staged and strategic approach, the site can evolve into a self-sustaining model that restores land, strengthens local relationships, and demonstrates how people can actively participate in creating regenerative futures.
Project updates
Team
Regenerative food and community hub in Candelara, Italy
Italy
Education, Restoration, CommunityKO
Kootuia
New Zealand
Business, Indigenous Group, Community GroupKootuia is a systems innovation and regeneration practice, supporting organisations to design and deliver programmes that enable long-term change across food systems, urban regeneration, and community development.
Project story
Introduction
In just its first year of operation, SemiVaganti has laid the foundation for a vibrant, community-centred initiative that brings together food, wellbeing, ecology, and social connection.
What began as a vision to create a place where people could reconnect with themselves, one another, and the land has already generated meaningful outcomes. Throughout 2025, significant work has been undertaken to transform the site from a neglected landscape into a space of possibility and regeneration.
Key achievements include:
Establishing a vegan kitchen that provides meals, hosts community dinners, and creates opportunities for people to gather around food.
Removing large volumes of accumulated waste and restoring neglected areas of the property.
Beginning the rehabilitation of the site's olive orchard and surrounding landscape.
Introducing yoga and wellbeing programmes that encourage deeper connections between people and place.
Planting the first food crops to support household needs and lay the groundwork for future food production systems.
These initiatives represent more than individual projects. Together, they form the beginnings of an integrated regenerative ecosystem where food, education, ecology, and community reinforce one another.
To date, this progress has been an extraordinary achievement driven by the vision, leadership, and commitment of the SemiVaganti family. Community support has steadily grown through events, shared meals, and local participation, demonstrating a strong appetite for a place that brings people together around food, culture, and connection.
Almost every aspect of the project has been self-funded and self-delivered by the family from marketing and event delivery to site maintenance, restoration works, and specialist expertise, while simultaneously raising a young family. The opportunity now is to build the operational capacity, resources, and supporting systems needed to transform this emerging initiative into a lasting community asset.
The long-term vision is to create a living demonstration of regenerative practice—one that reconnects people to the origins of their food, strengthens community resilience, restores ecological health, and inspires new ways of living in relationship with the land.
To realise this vision, SemiVaganti and Kootuia have formed a strategic partnership that combines practical implementation with regenerative design methodologies, systems thinking, and appropriate technologies. Together, they seek to cultivate regenerative capital across ecological, social, cultural, and economic dimensions while creating a model that can inspire similar initiatives elsewhere.
Meet the Project Stewards
SemiVaganti
SemiVaganti is our family: Alessia, Luca, Arturo, and Olivia alongside Bobby Marlon and Penny Lane, the beloved caretakers of the property.
Originally from Pesaro, we returned to our homeland after several years living in the Canary Islands, where we co-founded and operated a 100% vegan restaurant in Tenerife. It was ultimately the pull of nature, community, and the countryside that brought us home.
SemiVaganti represents the beginning of a new chapter: creating a place where food, hospitality, wellbeing, and connection to the land can come together to support both people and the environment.
Kootuia
Kootuia is a regenerative development and futures practice working between the Marche region of Italy and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand.
The name Kootuia means "to strengthen connections through the weaving of relationships", reflecting our commitment to connecting people, place, culture, and ecology in ways that create lasting and meaningful change.
Founded by Alexanda (Marche-based) and Christina (Auckland-based), Kootuia brings more than a decade of experience in regeneration, systems change, and social innovation. Their work includes leadership in regional food systems, community engagement for long-term river regeneration programmes in Auckland, and the delivery of regenerative practice training and guest lectures across Europe.
Kootuia supports organisations, communities, and place-based initiatives to design and implement programmes that enable long-term transformation across food systems, urban regeneration, ecological restoration, and community development.
The Opportunity
The potential of SemiVaganti lies in its ability to bring people back into relationship with the land while cultivating a strong, interconnected community. The site has the capacity to become a living demonstration of regenerative practice, education, wellness, food production, and community collaboration.
Current Focus Areas
1. Urban Market Garden
The first priority is establishing an on-site market garden capable of producing food for the family and team, with the long-term goal of creating a local food system that is accessible to the wider community.
The garden will serve multiple purposes:
Producing fresh, edible food.
Demonstrating regenerative growing practices.
Creating educational experiences that connect food production to food preparation.
Providing opportunities for cooking classes that showcase the journey from garden bed to kitchen to community table.
Expanding ecological education through the cultivation of native species and a deeper understanding of natural systems.
2. Connecting the Site to the Pond
A second focus is creating a nature trail that links the main site to the local pond. This trail will support guided walks, nature excursions, and educational experiences that encourage greater awareness of the surrounding ecosystem and biodiversity.
3. Community Activity Hub
SemiVeganti has the potential to become a local hub for community activity, supporting:
Local market stallholders and producers.
Music and cultural events.
Wellness activities such as yoga and movement practices.
Educational workshops and gatherings.
Together, these activities can form a vibrant micro-ecosystem that supports social, cultural, environmental, and economic wellbeing.
4. Regenerative Systems and Strategy
Many of these initiatives are already functioning in their early stages. However, there is currently no coordinated framework or staff management that connects these activities into a unified regenerative strategy.
To achieve long-term impact, SemiVeganti requires a staged development process, clear operational systems, and an overarching strategy that enables the project to become increasingly self-sustaining while continuously nurturing both community and landscape.
Proposed First-Year Partnership Program
Over the next twelve months, the proposed first stage of development will focus on:
Resourcing and establishing the market garden
Developing productive growing spaces.
Building soil health and regenerative growing systems.
Increasing local food production capacity.
Creating a water harvesting and education system
Implementing practical water capture and management infrastructure.
Using the system as a demonstration and educational tool for visitors and participants.
Delivering educational cooking programs
Running cooking classes alongside food production activities.
Teaching participants how food moves from soil to plate.
Building awareness of healthy, local, seasonal food systems.
Developing the pond trail and ecological learning experiences
Creating access to the pond through a nature-based walking track.
Facilitating conversations and education around ecology, biodiversity, and landscape regeneration.
Designing the long-term regenerative strategy
Developing the operational systems, governance structures, and implementation of roadmap required to bring the broader vision to life.
Establishing a clear staged process for future growth and investment.
Developing an impact measurement process
Create a sustainable operational model to enable community-enabled regeneration.
Hosting regenerative training and co-design programs
Running on-site regenerative training sessions where participants can learn practical tools and methodologies.
Creating opportunities for people to contribute directly to the land while developing skills and knowledge.
Engaging the community in co-designing the future of the site.
Vision
We are approaching this work with humility, knowing we don’t have it all worked out, and staying open to learning as we go. What matters most to us is the commitment to keep showing up, listening to the land and the community, and evolving the project step by step.
This early stage offers a rare and valuable opportunity to build strong foundations with care and intention shaping the systems, relationships, and resources that will support SemiVaganti to grow in a grounded and resilient way over time.
SemiVaganti’s Regenerative Ecosystem in Candelara has the potential to become a living regenerative hub where food, ecology, education, wellness, and community are woven together. Through a staged and strategic approach, the site can evolve into a self-sustaining model that restores land, strengthens local relationships, and demonstrates how people can actively participate in creating regenerative futures.
Project updates
Team
Location
Italy